Brilliant Idea on International Trading (very easy to implement and balance)

[Noblejms]

On the old economic model in Vicky1, Johan once said, "If pink flying elephants make the game more fun, they're in".

Here's a pink elephant idea on international trading that I believe is not only fun but probably also very easy to implement and balance. It fits with Paradox's game design philosophy quite well.

Similar idea has been successfully done in another very popular deep strategy game. It forces players to think about the economic consequences before attacking another country and encourages the establishment of trading partners, which is something Vicky1 lacks.

So for Mr. King, OHgamer, and other Vicky2 developers, if you're seeing this, could you please give it some thoughts about the possibility of putting this into Vicky2 or future expansion?

Here's the idea:

1. Each nation is able to establish, through diplomatic options, trade routes with other nations. The amount of revenue from each single trade route is (1% of total export revenue + 0.05% of partner export revenue) x trading efficiency x economic tech and invention modifier.

2. The number of total possible trade routes depends on your economic policy and economic techs. For example, laissez-faire with free trade gives you a maximum of 15 trade routes, while protectionalism with state capitalism caps you at a maximum of 5 trade routes.

3. You can terminate trade routes with another nation at any time, but relation will significantly deterioate. Either in diplomatic option or when sue for peace, you can force a country to stop trading with its trading partner of your choosing.

4. Only a maximum of 2 trade routes are allowed between any 2 nations. This is to prevent an exploit to trade with just a single partner and ignore the rest of the world. It also encourages interlinked international trading.

That's all!

Though unrealistic, it bypasses the need for rewriting the whole economic engine of the game, leaving World Market and commodities mechanism untouched, while bringing economy, trading, and international relations together as painlessly as possible!

 

[byzantium43]

boo. Leave that in Empire: Total lack of AI

 

[Noblejms]

boo. Leave that in Empire: Total lack of AI

I was thinking about GC2.

 

[ulrichomega]

I enjoy watching people talk about "Easy implementation" as though they knew about it. In reality, even if it is really easy to code, the balancing of it would take forever, not to mention getting it to work on all machines, etc.

 

[Alexander Seil]

I'm not sure what this adds to the game, seeing as how it's almost completely divorced from the commodities trade.

 

[Weijun]

While I would love to see a proper economic simulation (Victoria 5, perhaps?), the world market seems to be a better abstraction than trade routes. Was Great Britain only trading with 15 countries in 1885?

I hope the devs come up with a more interesting mechanism than prestige to limit access to the WM, though.

 

[Taylor]

Sorry, but I don't see the use of this idea really. Also, it makes me question what commodity is traded, seeing as all commodities are bought and sold on the world market.

And, like ulrichomega says, such features are not always as easy to implement as you think, for example because the AI has to know how to use the feature, and the feature has to be balanced properly.

 

[Dunderdon]

I doubt Paradox is going to consider new ideas at this stage of game development, don't you think so?

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

A good idea, but unlikely to make it in at this stage

 

[unmerged(7537)]

I don't think it fits the spirit of Victoria as such and as has been mentioned, even if it did, it's unlikely to be implemented at this point.

I'd have loved to see something along these lines for Europa Universalis, though.

 

[unmerged(63310)]

While I would love to see a proper economic simulation (Victoria 5, perhaps?), the world market seems to be a better abstraction than trade routes. Was Great Britain only trading with 15 countries in 1885?

I hope the devs come up with a more interesting mechanism than prestige to limit access to the WM, though.

Prestige won't be as important for access to the WM with artisans. Though artisans won't completely substitute for access either so prestige is still important which I think is actually fair to represent some of the difficulties non western countries would have to overcome to be great powers(since civilized counties will probably start with some small prestige amount initially as in V1 plus great powers get a further bonus and all westernized nations get a small bonus).

So UK as the foremost great power could start the game with 200 prestige while USA has 100 due to being western and civilized but not a great power, Ottomans would start with 50 as they are civilized but not westernized or a great power etc. Also this would allow some European states to lose a small war or suffer a couple bad events without going negative prestige.

It would be even better if there were rolling prestige bonus- in other words, #1 exporter +100 prestige but it simply rolls to the #1 rank so China could start with 100 prestige but lose a war go to 50 prestige, lose #1 exporter and go to -50 prestige while the new #1 exporter gains 100 prestige.

Could be rolling prestige bonus due to;
Exports
Military
Industry
Highest technology(or first achieved highest if a tie).

Not enough a bonus to totally change the game but give some of the leading nations a bit further room to change position rapidly(since falling out of great power status sounds to be quite harmful but also make some dynamics more interesting) or regain their positions.

 

[gamer42_au]

IMO this proposal adds relatively little.

I think the key elements that should be in Victoria (though apparently ruled out for V2) are:
1) maritime efficiency - during the period the efficiency of maritime transport changed dramatically. At the start of the period transport was relatively slow and it was not worthwhile shipping low value items a long distance. Later (with steam transports) costs dropped dramatically, allowing grain and other foodstuff (mainly from mid-west USA) provide the food needed in the UK for instance. Hence at the end of the period there was something close to a single world market.
So a transition from goods being different prices in different markets (with some profits made from shifting high value items between regions, but lower value ones too expensive to be worth moving), to a world where even relatively small differences in price are profitable to exploit.

2) Profit from shipping
UK in particular made a great deal of money from providing shipping services. Building ships and providing shipping services required considerable capital and provided a substantial flow of income. Arguably, Britain's position was stronger making money off the flow of trade than when its trading dominance was reduced and it resorted to direct political control of some states.
So modelling trade fleet as source of income as well as movement of goods around the world would be interesting and would naturally flow to real consequences for a wartime opponents having control of the seas.

Of course neither of these propositions would be easy to program (or balance), though they would make for a much more nuanced economic model.

 

[KevinG]

Here's a better idea: abolish the WM and make bilateral trade between nations like in the HOI series. That way blockading or refusing to trade with a country might actually mean something, unlike in vicky 1 where if Germany has no small arms factories it can just buy them off the UK while in a war against them.

 

[Lloyien]

Here's a better idea: abolish the WM and make bilateral trade between nations like in the HOI series. That way blockading or refusing to trade with a country might actually mean something, unlike in vicky 1 where if Germany has no small arms factories it can just buy them off the UK while in a war against them.

Why must Germany be buying small arms from the UK, rather than from Italy, France, the USA, Mexico, or any of the other many, many nations producing small arms?

Not to mention, as it has been belabored endlessly, the various neutral middlemen which would procure the guns to sell to the Germans.

Secondly, and this may be minor to you--but don't you think bilateral trade agreements would ramp up trade micromanagement to absurd levels with as many resources as Victoria has?

 

[unmerged(86462)]

This would go against the whole point of Victoria being more abstract than a simple 'God' game, the WM better represents the free market ethos of the time and is a lot more interesting than having to set up and then reset-up after wars ect. bi-lateral trade agreements.

 

[King]

If you want to suggest ideas that are very easy to implement and balance and then please make them very easy to implement and balance. This idea is neither.

 

[Surgünoglu]

You're basically doomed the moment you advertise your thought as "brilliant."

 

[Noblejms]

Thanks for the reply King.

Yes perhaps it's a bad idea.

But there should be some sort of economic relations between nations in a game of this scope.....

EU: Rome, EU3, HOI2/3, CKDV, Civilization series, Total War series all have it.

I've read all the Developer's Diaries and know you're the brain behind V:R, you're really brilliant. If you say it cannot be done then I believe you. But this is a potential area in the game where if done right, can truly make this game shine.

 

[Sarmatian]

Here's a better idea: abolish the WM and make bilateral trade between nations like in the HOI series. That way blockading or refusing to trade with a country might actually mean something, unlike in vicky 1 where if Germany has no small arms factories it can just buy them off the UK while in a war against them.

That get's tedious with several type of items, I shudder to think how it would be with hundreds... You'd spend more time tweaking your trade than manually promoting all the pops of China in Vic1.

 

[King]

Thanks for the reply King.

Yes perhaps it's a bad idea.

But there should be some sort of economic relations between nations in a game of this scope.....

EU: Rome, EU3, HOI2/3, CKDV, Civilization series, Total War series all have it.

I've read all the Developer's Diaries and know you're the brain behind V:R, you're really brilliant. If you say it cannot be done then I believe you. But this is a potential area in the game where if done right, can truly make this game shine.

These kinds of thing can be done. However we create three problems for ourselves. Firstly we add more code we creates additional points of failure. Two we add more complexity that then forces greater burdens on the interface, thus craming yet more information when we have finite space. Thirdly you create a feature of direct neogtiation which is exploitable against the AI this in turn adds greater complexity to the AI code and is one of the more difficult tricks to get the AI to do. The pay off here versus the time invested is definately not worth it. The final point is the one that is most difficult to implement and balance.